Jared Tallent silver medal in 5km walk
JARED Tallent is an Olympic medallist for a third time.
Tallent walked himself into Australian Olympic history with a silver medal in the 50km walk in London tonight.
This adds to his silver and bronze medals in Beijing in 2008.
Two-time world champion Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin took out the event in an Olympic record time of three hours, 35 minutes, 59 seconds.
Tallent was also inside the Olympic record, which had stood at 3:37.09.
The Canberra-based Newlyn athlete produced a personal best 3:36.53.
Tianfeng Si, of China, was third in 3:37.16.
What made Tallent's performance even greater than the time was that he was on two red cards before reaching 20km.
A third red card would have meant disqualification.
He used every ounce of his vast international experience to maintain form and get to the line.
Tallent walked conservately early when the pace was on, choosing to stay near the rear of a 12-man leading group, although never away from the pace.
He walked his way into a podium position the last 10km - moving to a clear second at the 45km mark.
Kirdyapkin looked to be in trouble at 35km when dropped to eighth and 31 seconds off the front.
He surged to the lead in the next 5km and had the race won for the last 5km.